Taking yet another page out of the iPhone book, Windows Phone 7 will push out their operating system updates directly to consumers, without going through carrier or manufacturer testing, as they had traditionally. Unlike the iPhone, smaller Windows Phone updates will occur either over the air through Wi-Fi or 3G, and bigger ones will be sideloaded through the Zune software. This all was revealed in an interview with Microsoft manager Charlie Kindel.
Although being criticized for lacking some core functions like multitasking, Microsoft has been pretty clear that Windows Phone 7 is not “feature complete”, and that there’s still a lot of work to be done. With an OTA framework in place to support updates, and no carrier or manufacturer hurdles to overcome, hopefully the incoming upgrades will be fast and furious whenever Windows Phone 7 launches.